The suit alleges that Lively’s involvement in anti-gay efforts in Uganda, including his active participation in a conspiracy to strip away fundamental rights from LGBT persons constitutes persecution. This is the first known Alien Tort Statute (ATS) case seeking accountability for persecution on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.

While Lively's name may not be familiar to the majority of Americans, he is known to those fighting for LGBT rights in Uganda. According to the New York Times, the suit against Lively alleges that he "conspired with religious and political leaders in Uganda to whip up anti-gay hysteria with warnings that gay people would sodomize African children and corrupt their culture." Vince Warren, executive director of the CCR, argues in a Washington Post blog that Lively calls himself the "'father' of the anti-gay movements" in Uganda.

In 2009, the African nation considered enacting a bill, referred to by some as the "Kill the Gays" bill, that would have imposed the death sentence on active homosexuals living with HIV or in cases of same-sex rape, per the Times. As part of the bill, an undefined category of "serial offenders" would also be eligible for death. The Times notes that one of Lively's Ugandan contacts proposed the bill.

Uganda's "Kill the Gays" bill was initially dropped after an international outcry but was reintroduced in February 2012. It is possible that this new version of the bill may nix the capital punishment clause, according to The Times. Lively voiced his support for the revision on his blog, writing, "Since the alternative to passing this bill is to allow the continuing, rapid, foreigner-driven homosexualization of Ugandan culture, I am giving the revised Anti Homosexuality Bill my support."

Lively previously drew the ire of organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center for co-authoring a book titled The Pink Swastika, published in 1995. In it, Lively argued that some of Hitler's closest advisers were gay, and that they helped mastermind the Holocaust.

"While we cannot say that homosexuals caused the Holocaust, we must not ignore their central role in Nazism," write Lively and co-author Kevin Abrams. "To the myth of the 'pink triangle' — the notion that all homosexuals in Nazi Germany were persecuted — we must respond with the reality of the 'pink swastika.'"